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“I don’t know if my expectations towards Yunnans have been making many of these unenjoyable for me, but…I’m getting ahead of myself here. [Though you can probably guess where this...”
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I don’t know if my expectations towards Yunnans have been making many of these unenjoyable for me, but…I’m getting ahead of myself here. [Though you can probably guess where this is going.]

I braved the cold earlier today with a couple of friends [I mean, serious cold, like wind whipping you, don’t even want to know what the temperature was with wind chill, lung stabbing cold] to check Teaism’s Dupont Circle location out. They brew it for you behind the counter, so I can’t list any parameters, but we made our way upstairs with three teapots full of tea and sat down to catch up.

Teaism is a neat space. It’s got kind of a rustic feeling to it, and they have a ton of teaware on display, which was cool. It’s a little cramped, which is pretty much par for the course for a lot of DC spaces, but when you’re coming in from the holy crap cold it reads as cozy. My friends got their Jasmine Pearl and their Silver Needle, which I won’t log because I only tried a few sips of each [relatively unimpressive]. I drank nearly the entire teapot of this, though, so I feel that I can speak to it somewhat solidly.

Reading the website’s rather short description of this, it sounds about right. It brewed into a bright amber finish. It had a sweet finish to it. And…really, that was about it.

There wasn’t a lot of depth to this tea. It was dark. It tasted a little malty. It was smooth. The sweetness was a dark kind of sweetness. Kind of like brown sugar, or maybe like yams. And that was really about it. Oh, it began to dry my mouth out a bit towards the end of the pot. That’s really it.

Considering that it was $3.85 for the pot, it made me kind of angry. I’m not usually one to notice that kind of stuff, but having a small kind of concept of how much margin they’re making off of something they’re calling high grade made me feel a bit blah. [Luckily, this was quickly righted when we went somewhere else and stuffed ourselves with Thai food.] It’s not that it was bad. I’m making it sound awful, I know. It was pleasant enough. It just wasn’t…eh. My lack of ability to be able to finish this log off shall have to be indicative of how I feel about this tea. Eh.

@Angrboda Oh, I intend greatly for today to be a good tea day. Already started it off with some Ryokucha, so things are looking up already.

@Micah I know! I’m lucky that I was with my friends, otherwise I probably would have been pissed. Good conversation can dull crappy experiences. It might have improved if they had let it sit a bit longer, but I don’t know how long they let it sit to begin with, so…eh.

@teaplz Hah, that’s about what it is at Samovar, too, but the ones I had there they gave me the leaf and my own hot water, and I was able to resteep it as many times as I wanted. Here, they steep it in the pot, remove the leaf, and once you’re out you’re out. Eh. I think that the price became a point of contention to me because I wasn’t happy with the tea.

Now that I think about it, I’ve been to teaism (my family lives in Silver Spring, MD, so it’s close) but I can’t think of what I had. I think I need to head back over there soon, but it’s always SO CROWDED.

The control issues are understandable. I just realized the other day just how weak I drink black tea. If I use the recommendations for time, leaves, or temperature it’s almost always too bitter for me. Needing to control something is natural, there’s no need to rush to get a psychoanalysis or anything. ^__~

Seriously. I’m actually surprised we were able to get a seat [let alone three], because I’ve seen it at times where there have been lines out the door. I can only guess that it was SOOOO cold out that most people were smart and stayed indoors. And as for the control issues…yes, no need to psychoanalyze. I already know I have issues. Hah!